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Category: Essays

I’m not just talking about spelling or punctuation or usage. (Although I grit my teeth whenever I see someone misuse “Too, To and Two.” How in God’s green earth can someone not know the difference between those words and still be allowed to operate a motor vehicle?)

Rather, I am talking about choosing the right words and, most of all, accepting responsibility for what is said.

The power and weight and consequence of words is immense, especially in today’s world of social media when so many say so much that, ultimately means so little.

Words seem to have lost their inherent value, spewed aimlessly, reduced to so much acidic vomit, their truth twisted cynically into sour, burned pretzels of misinformation and deception.

These thoughts came to mind at a conference I recently attended about understanding poverty.

In that context I realized that we often confuse and therefore misuse “Sympathy” and “Empathy.”

First, to be clear, though their meanings overlap, they are not directly synonymous.

Empathy means acknowledging the validity of another’s experience. Without judgement. Without criticism.

Sympathy, on the other hand is the act of feeling badly for someone because of some unfortunate life circumstance. It sometimes smacks of (or at least can open the door to) judgement, criticism and pity.

For example, I feel badly that one of my brothers is suffering the residual effects of a vicious divorce. My heart hurts for him (though I have to say there’s a lot of karma behind what he’s going through.)

That may seem a subtle line in the linguistic sand. It’s not – neither in theory nor application.

It is literally the difference between saying “I feel for you,” and “I feel you.”

Sadly, like so many other aspects of our capitalistic, “I-Me-Mine” American society in which we think first (and sometimes only) of how something will impact us personally, we tend to favor sympathy over empathy.

Sympathy (without empathy) requires less of us — physically, emotionally or even financially.

Sympathy (without empathy) lets us stand off to the side and do nothing more than cluck our tongues, pitying someone for their hard knocks.

It is harder, and perhaps more dangerous to say, “I may not agree with your lifestyle/position/choice/perspective. I cannot understand it because it’s not my reality. But it is authentic for you. So, I respect it.”

Empathy forces us to recognize, acknowledge and understand that my life is not everyone’s life. And that others – just like me – didn’t and don’t always get to choose the circumstances of their life.

Most especially, empathy insists that we say (and this is the hardest part): “I want to help however I can, human being to human being.” No judgement, no criticism.

So, for example, I am not poor (or African American, or female, or homosexual, or grieving the loss of a family member, etc.) Therefore, I cannot possibly understand what it means, or has meant, or will mean to be any of those things.

But I am willing and able – indeed, I am charged as a fellow life traveler – to trust that someone else’s experience, circumstances, challenges and obstacles are very much real.

They define us.

They define how the world sees and interacts with us – and potentially how we see and interact with the world around us in response.

I may not get “It” – whatever “It” is for someone else. But I don’t have to, in order to do the right thing.

A very good friend of mine notes that I write a lot about social justice issues.

She’s right.

Yet this isn’t about social justice per se. In a perverse way, making this concern that “big” makes it too big. Doing that somehow elevates empathy to a gilded place, making it harder to get at and therefore easier to ignore.

Rather, this is about something much simpler: basic human decency (speaking of important and misunderstood words…)

When it comes to understanding others different than us – no matter the difference — basic human decency dictates we should step down from our pedestal and help someone else step up.

Try to simply understand.

Open our minds and hearts.

Stretch out a helping hand as far as possible.

And remember that how we are different isn’t nearly as important as how we are the same.

She gives my wife and me detailed directions like the sun rising, every time we watch our eight-month-old granddaughter Riley:

Feed her at this time, bathe her at that time, play with those toys, use this to wipe her, sing to her to get her to eat, mix this food with that one, mush the bananas clockwise but not after 3 p.m., etc.

She always ends with, “Send me pictures and give her lots of kisses.”

Mostly, we accept and play along with this routine because we remember what it was like being new parents some 25 years ago. Worried about every little thing. Afraid that your brand-new baby is going to shatter into a gatrillion pieces in the evil grips of the first strong breeze. Terrified that every tiny birthmark is a harbinger of some awful childhood malady.

Which is exactly the point. We’ve been there, done that. As I have told Emma several times, tongue only partly in cheek, “Please note that you and your sister are still here and you’re both doing relatively OK.”

Still, whenever Emma issues her Maternal Mandate, I often respond with a favorite joke:

“I normally charge for that,” I say, “but since I like you so much, I’ll give you the Family Discount.”

Our kids, familiar with the gag, now just roll their eyes and ask how much discount they get. Ten percent? Twenty?

Truth be told, it is amusing to us as new grandparents because we (like all new parents) were the same way.

Now though, we have the unique pleasure of knowing full well what’s coming.

The bumps and bruises. The tears. The laughter. The exhilaration of that first flight on the playground swing. The thrill of learning to read. Showing off the new song she learned to play on the piano. “Teaching” Nana and Papa how to do her homework the “right way.” Sharing a newly-learned bit of knowledge.

And later, (no matter what my son-in-law says about her joining a convent) the excitement of her first kiss. The starry-eyed end of her first date. And maybe if we’re all very lucky, her first dance with her soulmate at her wedding.

It’s also heartening to know that our daughter and son-in-law are such caring parents that they wrap their child in blankets of protective love – even with two of the people who love her most in all the world.

Frankly, this grand-parenting this is just about the most awesome job we’ve ever had. My wife recently said, completely sincere, “I don’t know what I did before this.”

I reminded her about the 33 years of our life together, Pre-Grandchild.

She stared at me like I’d spoken ancient Aramaic.

In any case, we have fallen deeply in love with an eight-month-old girl baby for whom all of life is an adventure still unfolding, so full that we can’t even begin to imagine what tomorrow might bring.

So, we don’t even try.

We just thank God for this Now. For every smile that makes the room sparkle. Every joy-filled laugh. Every heart-breaking tear. Every endearing touch from her chubby little hands.

This newfound love, this extension and affirmation of our own parenting is so fulfilling that its value exceeds any “fee” I could charge.

Every now and again, I get the blues. And, as the song says, “baby, that ain’t good.”

I don’t mean depression.

I know several people with true depression, duly diagnosed and appropriately treated. I don’t always understand depression. Sometimes (selfishly, I admit) its effects frustrate me. Still, I respect it (and them) enough to not diminish its reality by comparing it to what I feel.

Strangely the feeling comes, like clockwork, every few months or so, reminding me of the pseudo-scientific concept of “biorhythms” from the late 1970s and 1980s.

That trend, for those too young to remember (and/or too smart to buy into) said that our bodies and spirits function in regular cycles.

The theory suggests that ones intellect, spirit and physical strength rises and falls every three weeks or so depending on the function. We enjoy peaks and endure troughs.

Most scientists agree that the concept is no more scientific or reliable for predicting emotional/physical/intellectual strength than simple chance.

I don’t know about the science of it all, but I know that what I feel is real.

When those changes come, I need some medicine. Not in the form of pills, but rather people. Important people. People who re-energize me.

I am in one of those “emotional troughs” even as I type this.

Luckily, my medicine is all around me, in a house in bucolic Galena, Illinois, rented with two other couples for a shared weekend away.

There’s Chuck, my best buddy for 30-some years, strumming away on his guitar. There’s his wife, Donna, my “sister in Liberal-hood,” laughing at a magazine story about people who tattoo their faces.

There’s Debbie in her Tweety Bird jammies snuggled under a blanket on the couch cuddling up to her husband, Jay. He’s reading a book about the history of baseball he found at the house.

They’re the youngest of the bunch. The metaphorical babies of our little band. In fact, this shared weekend getaway is partly to celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary. The rest of us have been married for more than 20 years. Yet they fit wonderfully, magically adding their own special spice to this friendship stew.

And of course, there’s my wife/best friend/life mate Kellie, whipping up the kind of gourmet breakfast most people can’t imagine or must pay extra for. A chef by trade and a Mom by nature, she does it effortlessly and joyfully and we all benefit.

Just in case you’re fearing some kind of literary “Kumbaya” moment here, let me be clear:

We don’t always agree. We don’t always laugh. Rough edges have sometimes been exposed as they will whenever people gather and spend time together.

We are adult humans, after all. We think differently. Believe different things. Appreciate different kinds of music and books and politics and films and activities.

Sometimes we hit the occasional bump as Chuck did – literally – this weekend. Except it wasn’t a bump, but a ditch. And he didn’t hit it, but backed blindly into it, blowing out a tire. We drove to Iowa to replace it while our spouses and friends stomped grapes at a winery.

Or we get lost – as I did, several times. In my defense, I can’t find my way out of my own driveway most days without a copilot and a map. Plus, we were so low in the Mississippi River valley that the GPS on our phones wasn’t working.

Or someone will cross a line with a comment that’s funnier as a memory than it was in the moment.

Often, new experiences with close friends can reinforce bonds already steel-strong, building new bridges on shared touchstones, love, laughter and camaraderie.

Sometimes, not so much.

My wife, Kellie and I hoped for the former as we headed out the first week of June with two of our dearest friends, Deb and Jay for five days of camping in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.

For Kellie and me, camping is our default for time away. Until they reached late adolescence, our kids knew no other form of vacation. That was on purpose. We truly love its simplicity and all that comes (or doesn’t come) with that.

The tree-rustling breeze. The immense quiet. The long walks along the shore of an inland ocean, the waves lapping at your toes. The “forced” obligation to create your own recreation (until the damned Internet infested every corner of the world, including even the deepest deep woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.) The temporarily-close friendships struck with folks with kids the same age as yours. The seemingly-unending daylight crowned by campfires that burn holes into the pitch-black blanket of night. The occasional nocturnal visit by critters and bears. The food that tastes better than anything ever tasted that wasn’t cooked in the open air. Even the sinful mess of S’mores that our daughters couldn’t resist and refused to deny.

But we know camping is not for everyone. For some, those clichés about their idea of camping being “a Holiday Inn without a hair drier” are absolutely true. In fact, I knew exactly nothing about camping the first time I went with Kellie and her family as a 19-year-old just wanting to spend every waking moment (and more) with my new girlfriend. An east-side Joliet boy, the closest I’d come to camping was sleeping outside under an Army blanket strung over my grandmother’s clothes line on their farm in Herscher. (And, I seem to recall we didn’t last the whole night outside.)

Even then, our first few excursions were inside a small RV crammed with relatives, pets and friends – which is to “camping” what a burger with the kids at McDonald’s is to family dinner. Kind of the same, but not really.

So frankly, we were a little surprised when Deb and Jay – her a camping virgin, him with some nominal experience — accepted our invitation to join us for a week.

(I still think that the invitation was made, and the acceptance given over several-too-many glasses of wine. Still, Your Honor, we gave them many chances to back out, and they didn’t, so…)

To be clear, Kellie and I are years past (and now too old for) sleeping on the ground. Rather, we have evolved to what I call “modified tent camping” complete with high, firm air mattresses and full electric inside the tents to power our phones, IPads and Kellie’s sleep apnea machine. (That last one is important. Kellie can’t breathe without the machine. Plus, you know, it’s easy to confuse a snoring spouse with a rumbling bear.)

Still, when it comes right down to it, only a tent wall (and the occasional tarp when circumstances warrant) stands between us and whatever Mother Nature throws our way.

We arrived around dinner time after six hours on the road. Our site sat near the edge of a high bluff only 200 yards from Lake Michigan. Amid all that late-afternoon glory, we had to set up three tents in winds blowing so hard I thought maybe God was mad at us. And that was just the start.

Being early June, the weather was alternately gorgeous and glum.

Temps dipped into the low fifties and high forties at night – ideal snuggling and sleeping weather if you’re accustomed to and prepared for it. If not, well…that story often ends in blurry-eyed breakfasts. (We gave Jay and Deb an electric heater the next morning which seemed to help a bit.)

The second night, it rained. Again, not usually a crisis, unless one is used to sleeping in totally dry conditions sheltered by layers of drywall.

To preface: we have two spare tents belonging to each of our daughters. They used them individually when they got “too old” to occupy the same space (heaven forbid…only girls…)

One tent is smaller but has a full nylon ceiling and only a couple of windows. The other is bigger, but the entire top half is mesh, making for fabulous ventilation — if the weather is dry. Understandably, being full-grown adults, Deb and Jay favored the extra space and picked the bigger tent.

As all veteran campers do, I’d twice waterproofed all the seams in both our tents and the flies that cover the tents, anticipating the possibility of some precipitation.

Anyway, it rained. Water did what water does, finding a way around the fly and in between the otherwise-waterproofed seams and through the mesh tent ceiling.

Once again, Your Honor, I must give some context: it’s not like it rained “Noah’s Ark” rain (although, situated under a tree and amplified by the nearby lake, it sounded worse than it really was.)

Still, they got wet.

And we felt terrible. (I put a tarp over their tent the next morning. Of course, it didn’t rain again, and why would it? Mother Nature’d already had her laugh at our expense.)

Then, the penultimate day of the trip was damp and chilly. No other way to say it. Even for Kellie and me who had packed for a wide range of late spring meteorological possibilities. I threw on every piece of clothing I had. No luck. It. Was. Friggin’. Cold.

At Kellie’s welcome suggestion, we day-tripped into town where, strangely, it was twenty degrees warmer. We saw a movie at a charming, volunteer-run local cinema, visited a couple of bookstores (always my favorite part), hit a great winery and had a terrific lunch.

(If Kellie was a closer in baseball – not that she even knows what a closer is –she’d be a ka-trillionaire for all the “Life Saves” she has earned!)

Just to be clear, not every moment was misery.

We had a great time playing mini-golf. Learned Jay has a God-given skill for building award-winning campfires. Enjoyed some wonderful whiskey and wine each night. Took a long, tension-relieving walk along a terrific trail. Laughed even as we shivered through layers of denim and sweatshirts. Pigged out on best bison burgers ever (because they were made over a campfire.) Trekked a great state park that rewarded us with some of the most magnificent views God ever saw fit to paint. Strolled the lake Michigan-soaked streets of a town that put one in mind of coastal Maine, both misty-gray and sunny-blue at the same time. And had some wondrous cherry pie from a restaurant specializing in everything cherry.

Still, by any measure, those five days felt like an eight-day week.

Over our last evening meal, I asked our friends about their impressions of camping.

“Five days might have been too many for the first time,” said Jay, ever the diplomat, his smile silently begged forgiveness for his candor.

Guys being guys – and Jay being an admirably-protective young husband — I knew he was speaking for Deb, who sat across the picnic table, shivering and shrinking into her sweatshirt, turtle-like, searching for every last iota of warmth.

That’s how the trip ended.

The next day, our two-car caravan left together. Kellie and I drove straight home. Jay and Deb veered off to hit a tourist spot, arrived at our house a few hours later, dumped their borrowed camping gear and left as fast as courtesy allowed.

“Oh well,” I thought. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. At least now we know how they feel about camping.”

Then, this week, Deb posted a picture on Facebook of a ginormous luxury tent that looks like a canvas-covered penthouse suite at the Ritz-Carlton. Her note, addressed to Kellie, me and Jay: “Next camping trip!”

Proving yet again that friendship, strong and real and true, is as thick as a six-foot wide limestone wall.

My wife, Kellie and I are the proud parents of two dogs – Ozzie, a 13-year-old male Shi Tzu, and Daize (pronounced Daisy), a 7-year-old Shi Tzu-Terrier mix.

We have owned two other Shi Tzus (our preferred breed because I am allergic to pet hair and dander, and they don’t shed) – Duncan, who passed after two wonderful years before we had our human babies; and Otto, who filled the first 14 years of our human parenthood with joy.

We got Daize one year ago, on August 13, 2017. A year later, we love her as much as any of our other dogs.

But, to be clear, I did not want her.

To explain: about 18 months ago, we noticed that Ozzie was bumping into things, not responding to our voices, and basically sleeping all day. In other words, he was going blind and deaf and getting old, as dogs (and their middle-age parents) will do.

Kellie — whose heart on its smallest, Grinchiest days is three sizes bigger than mine will ever be — suggested possibly getting another dog soon, maybe as a transition dog or a friend for Ozzie since we wouldn’t likely have him much longer –a year, maybe two.

I briefly thought about it, but, I told my wife, her argument made no sense.

First, Ozzie didn’t need or seem to want a companion. He sleeps twenty-two hours a day. Plus, he’s blind and deaf, so odds are he wouldn’t even know another dog was in the room unless he accidentally bumped into it searching for his water.

But more to the point, my (former) Catholic guilt wouldn’t let me even consider taking even one minute of attention from Ozzie, knowing his days are numbered. Every time I thought about it, I felt like a nun had caught me peaking at another kid’s math test.

So, for one of the exceptionally rare times in our 33 years together, I said “no.” I meant it and was prepared to stick to my guns.

Then Kellie got a strange phone call.

A man who had been a resident at the assisted living home where she works, was returning to Illinois in extreme poor health after a year living in Georgia. Alas, his days, too, were numbered. He needed someone to take his dog, Daize.

His family couldn’t help, but he knew Kellie had loved Daize when they lived here. (True – Kellie is a magnificent mother/grandmother/caretaker to just about everyone and everything she meets. She’d even brought Daize to our house once or twice when the man needed help.) If Kellie could not take Daize, he’d have to put the dog into a shelter.

Naturally, my wife came to me. This couldn’t be coincidence, she was sure. She made her case as powerfully and passionately and logically as any lawyer.

I said no.

She tried several more times.

Still, no.

Then she did the worst, most diabolical, most twisted thing possible: she secretly conspired with our girls.

Out of nowhere my girls started carpet bombing me for several days with pleas for mercy and kindness. Our youngest even sang that god-awful Sarah McLachlan song from the ASPCA commercial.

Now, that’s dirty pool in my book!

Finally, I relented. What else could I do? I was trapped. But that didn’t mean I had to like it. And I didn’t. Not one bit.

So, on a hot August Sunday afternoon, my guilt riding shotgun and sniping in my ear the whole way, we picked up Daize from her former owner and “adopted” her.

Significantly overweight, with a smile defined by a hilariously-pronounced underbite, heavily matted and unkempt fur, a bit confused in her new surroundings, looking kind of sad but otherwise OK, we brought her into our home.

She slowly filled one of the vacant spots in our newly-empty nest. And for no reason that I can discern or fathom even a year later, she attached herself to me.

She will not leave my side. Even now as I write this, she lays two feet behind me on the rug in my office. She follows me everywhere like a 34-pound, four-pawed shadow. If I get up to do anything, she will follow. It’s exhausting just watching her!

When I get anywhere near her, she immediately rolls over for me to rub her fat, pink belly. And if I dare stop before she is contented, she bats at my hands until I resume.

Worst of all, it seems she is a night owl. (Perhaps she was a college kid in another life…)

Last winter, she started getting up and demanding to go outside at least once, often twice and occasionally three times a night. Usually around 2 a.m. she would bark from the bottom of the stairs until I get up.

At first, she would stroll around the yard, hunting for critters or frogs under the plants and decorative grasses.

“Hurry it up! Get in here!” I would yell at the top of my whispering voice from the kitchen in my pajamas, trying not wake every neighbor around.

She’d stare at me, dribble a token pee-pee, then saunter back, taking her sweet time. And then we’d enjoy a late-night snack together to celebrate her being a good girl.

Finally, in early spring, I got wise and put her on a leash so she couldn’t wander as far into the night shade. Now, she still gets me up several times a night, but at least it’s for a shorter period. That’s why I am the human! Superior brain power!

Remember, I didn’t want a dog at that time. Not this dog, not any dog.

Yet, there I am standing on the patio in my night duds, laughing at her shenanigans, joy filling my heart as sure as air fills my lungs.

What’s more – surprise! — she filled a void in my spirit and proved to be the “transition dog” that Kellie wanted. Not for Ozzie, who still ignores Daize as much as he can. But rather for me, bridging the gap between our daughters moving out, and our granddaughter’s birth.

All of which proves several points that have shaped my life:

wives hold all real power and wisdom;

human kids are excellent/evil conspirators;

pets of all kinds are members of the family as deserving of our love as any creature, human or otherwise;

And (as if the platypus weren’t proof enough) that God has a wicked sense of humor.

It’s my somewhat-cynical take on some of the legal, moral, ethical, philosophical, metaphorical and literal paradoxes of living in America today.

One of my best buddies, himself an exceptionally observant, talented, thoughtful (and often-dark) musician and writer, commented online: “Heavy stuff.”

I replied: “Heavy times.”

Sadly (for me, more than you) my brain swims a lot in the deep waters of the injustice that surrounds and threatens to drown many people in our world. Sometimes, it gets to be too much.

When that happens, when the world gets too heavy, the only thing to do is, go light.

That’s what happened this week. Hence, the poem. My head, heart and spirit shut down under the crushing weight of the political hijinks and media nonsense, repeated and pounded and repeated and pounded and repeated and pounded and…

I needed a break. Sometimes, the universe obliges.

My wife, Kellie and I had already made plans to see the new “Mission Impossible” entry Friday evening. Understand, our cinematic tastes run in different directions. Nor do we particularly enjoy going to the movies these days – the volume is too loud, the snacks too expensive and I can’t yell “Alexa, PAUSE” when I have to use the washroom like at home.

Still we both love the MI movies and have seen all of them on the big screen, usually on opening weekend. (Same with any James Bond film. Kellie loves both franchises. Go figure…)

We enjoyed a nice pre-movie dinner, found seats near the top of the theater, held hands, and really enjoyed the film – perhaps the best one yet.

That helped a bit.

Then, Saturday morning, I picked up my four-month-old granddaughter, Riley for the day. Our daughter Emma, like all modern young moms, returned to work a few weeks ago. We agreed to watch Riley on Saturdays. Agreed? What am I saying? We practically insisted!

Kellie spent most of the day with friends, saying goodbye to a member of their cross-stitching group who is moving to Florida. So, I had Riley all to myself. We – well, I — made a snap decision to take a long, leisurely walk on the Centennial Trail/I&M Canal path. Riley slept, I programmed my phone to “Blues” and hit shuffle. Three hours later, we both felt refreshed.

That helped a bit more.

Then, Saturday night, Kellie made a wonderful, light dinner – a Greek salad and a chilled bottle of deliciously-fruity and crisp Sauvignon Blanc. We ate outside, surrounded by flowers and vegetables in their full late-July glory, the soft breeze whispering around us.

Later, we broke out the Scrabble game. Please keep in mind that I make my living from words and am highly competitive about just about everything. Kellie is not competitive at all, and is a master of puzzles of every kind, including word games like Scrabble. I don’t like losing. She usually wins easily, and yet doesn’t seem to care either way. So, this is a big deal for us.

She routinely kicks my butt, often doing something ridiculous like using one letter to connect four words and earning a triple word bonus. It boggles my brain, but we have such a great time that I don’t mind losing. (Although, I will point out that in this case, we split the games.)

That helped a lot.

Now, on a beautiful late July Sunday afternoon, I feel a lot better.

I’d like to credit one thing or another as the definitive cause, but really, who knows or even cares?

Certainly, the long walk eased some physical tension. Communing over dinner out of doors calmed my spirit (cuddling up to nature is always important.) Definitely, hanging out with the sweetest four-month-old baby girl and the most intuitive life partner/chef/Scrabble champion I know, is key.

More important than what brought the peace, was that the peace was brought. When it was needed most.

In our human arrogance we try to wrest credit for every good thing that happens. To put a name to it, own it or capitalize on it. Shame on us.

Sometimes, it’s enough to just accept the Good when it comes, with sincere gratitude and awe for the mystery itself, understanding only what is most essential to understand:

It literally caused me pain as I bit my tongue when a colleague recently shared a piece he’d written celebrating the current president’s inauguration.

I bit even harder when he spouted alternative “facts” and opinions so Right leaning about both the president and his opponent that I feared he’d topple out of his seat.

I tasted the metallic flavor of my blood when he talked about how America would be the better for the president’s election.

I wish I could say that I contained my Left-wing passion and stifled any outburst. Sadly, I didn’t. I instead urged him to send his piece to Fox News because it would fit perfectly with the other nonsense (actually, I think I said “BS”) it broadcasts on behalf of (and to) the president.

So, I fell off the beam of this essential principle – or worse, had been baited into jumping off.

Either way, I was embarrassed.

I believe to the core of my being in the uniquely-American right to free speech. My personal and professional existence depends on it.

Therefore, with an apologetic nod to my colleague, I reiterate a basic, essential truth: Freedom of Speech – indeed, all our American freedoms – must work for everyone (including, most crucially, the media) or it doesn’t work at all.

Everyone has a right to their opinion, no matter how much it might test, twist or tear actual facts, philosophical truths, logic, systemic norms, cultural protocols, morality, legality, ethics, common sense, basic human decency or social decorum.

Conversely (and equally important), free speech cannot be limited just because someone – anyone – does not like what’s being said. If someone can limit my Freedom of Speech, then someone can limit your Freedom of Speech. This is a key point often forgotten, misunderstood, ignored and politicized at every level.

Simply put, what you say may not be “right”, but that doesn’t negate your right to say it.

If your words don’t jeopardize my fundamental ability and privilege to pursue life, liberty and happiness then you are welcome to them. You are free to share your view to your heart’s desire (or, the extent to which anyone wants to listen.)

Side note: I did not say anything about being offended by someone’s views. In this regard, I agree with my right-wing friends. Most of the time, under most circumstances, “offense” is subjective. One chooses to “take offense,” and how to respond to said offense taken.

(Side-Side note: “being offended” is not the same as suffering emotional harm, which can and does result from using words as weapons.)

“Offense,” in America, is an interesting critter. There is such a thing as “offensive” language, ideas, actions, etc. However, the definition of “offensive” turns with the tides.

Our American system guarantees Freedom of Speech of all kinds (as long as you’re not yelling “fire” in a movie theater, etc.)

More than the courts of law, more than politicians (or their followers), more than the media, “free speech” in America is largely decided and policed by the Marketplace of Ideas.

We can certainly discuss and debate, even disagree and dissent. That’s all great, and in fact encouraged. But in America, no one can take away my right to think my thoughts.

(Likewise, I am responsible for the consequences that my thoughts, words and actions might bring.)

To be blunt, my colleague’s essay deeply offended me. However, I should have done a better job of honoring his right to share his opinion (or, at least, bitten my tongue harder.)

Society, through its beliefs, philosophies, commitments and changing culture, defines and refines what is acceptable speech.

Which is really the point.

We are part of something bigger than ourselves. Bigger than any one person. We are a part of an ideal – the principle that our right to shape our views and share our minds is essential to the Greater Good of our country, society, and humanity.

The ideal of free speech – like so many other parts of our American system – is both blessing and curse. Beautiful and ugly. Seemingly easy in theory yet maddeningly hard in practice.

Yet that principle is worth protecting.

No matter how frustrating, confusing, self-contradicting — or painful.